


Apotheosis

by delicaterosebud



Category: Bleach
Genre: Character Study, Child Loss, Coping, Father-Daughter Relationship, Friendship, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2020-11-26 11:56:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20929829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delicaterosebud/pseuds/delicaterosebud
Summary: Losing a father is a rite of passage. A coming of age. It is a time for the young to look towards the future and face the inescapable nature of their own mortality.It is the natural order of things. The way it is and always would be.For a father to bury his daughter, however, is perhaps the true tragedy, for what he loses is nothing short of his hopes and dreams for immortality.___________________________________Following Nemu’s death in the war, a slowly recovering Mayuri must readjust to the concept of living his life alone. Though he had always been confident in his ability to walk his own path, completely independent of others, a chance visit from Zaraki makes him question whether his new lifestyle is better described as one of comforting solitude or one of simple, human loneliness.





	1. Chapter 1

Mayuri had never been prone to mourning. 

His grandfather passed, and life went on. His mother followed, and he was just as impassive throughout her funeral as he was during her father’s. He had nothing to say, no prayers to recite, when he did not believe in the existence of the gods. 

Cold, his father had called him, his wizened face, contorted in disgust. The bitter, old man was wrong, of course, as he often was. He’d never understood him. Mayuri’s emotional distance stemmed not from some intrinsic apathy but instead from rationality. It wasn’t that he cared nothing for his mother and grandfather – he had relatively few unpleasant memories of them in comparison to others – but he failed to understand the point of throwing himself to the floor, sobbing and wailing in a fit of impotent rage, when there was no way to reverse the irreversible.

Sadness had suited him poorly as a child. As a grown man, he distanced himself from it further, still. 

By no means had he grown into a nihilist, in his age, but Mayuri had, from the distant days of his youth, come to understand the great truth that life, in all forms, held little significance in the grand scheme of things. Looking up at the stars at five years old, then fifteen, twenty-five, five _hundred_, he gained and regained a sense of just how small he was – how small they all were – standing beneath the towering cosmos. 

Human beings were granted life through nothing more than chance: a key combination of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, floating far above them, melding together at precisely the opportune time. Lipids and amino acids stirring restlessly in the mire of Earth’s primordial soup. For hundreds of thousands of years, men were born, they lived, and they died, their entire lives, passing within the blink of a single moment, when compared to the universe’s timeless existence. Under such a context, what was the life of a single man? And what significance was there in the loss of it?

It had never seemed rational, to Mayuri, to mourn the death of something as transient as that.

Life meant so little. Death, even less. He’d been certain of it. 

But when it came to a life that he had created, for the very first time, Mayuri had begun to question that universal truth. He had begun to doubt. There was a strange, intolerable feeling welling up inside of him like blood, pooling beneath the barrier of his skin. A growing bruise, dark and vivid. 

The irrational desire to reverse the irreversible. And the injustice of having no other choice but to accept it. The anger and the impotency. 

It disgraced him, the great and infallible Captain of the Twelfth, more a miracle-worker than a scientist, as his peers would often testify. With brilliance, however, came pride, and with pride, lofty standards. Mayuri was not a man feeble enough to be graced with the privilege of mourning. 

Others had offered their condolences, of course, but he could not allow himself to dwell on them. 

He had a reputation to maintain. A certain lack of sentimentality was expected of him, as far removed as he was from the rest of the world. Walking on another plane of existence. Looking up to the cosmos. Even so, Mayuri knew, as powerful as he was, as brilliant as others _thought_ he was, in the end, even he, too, was nothing more than a little man on a rock, flying through the stars. Perhaps the weakness of allowing himself a single, fleeting moment of lamentation was forgivable, in the face of that.

And so, for once, he gave in to weakness and did the unthinkable.

Sitting in his private office, the door, locked and bolted, he began to pull his files from the Nemuri Project – not the statistics and the vital signs that he kept as a matter of public record, but the intimate, perhaps pointless details that he’d squirreled away from the rest of the world. Documents unworthy of publication. Paperwork that meant nothing, perhaps, to anyone but him. 

A list of Nemu’s likes and dislikes, which closely mirrored his own. Samples of her artwork, beautiful, even by his standards. Pages torn from her childhood diary – not the entries about her studies or her daily routine, but those about _him_. Casual scribbles in the margins. Sketches, photographs, and passing commentary, all serving as better evidence of her humanity than molecular models and psychological evaluations could ever prove to be. 

Despite their relative insignificance, throughout the ages, human beings were the only animals to have ever learned to express themselves through creation. The composition of orchestral masterpieces, the creation of artistic wonders, the pursuit of scientific breakthroughs, were hallmarks of the human legacy. When even simple cavemen could draw on walls, a lack of creativity in Nemu would have meant that Mayuri had failed to create life on any deeper level than mere molecular bonds.

That file in his hands was proof that he had succeeded.

Flipping through the samples of Nemu’s journal, he found an entry about how he’d fallen asleep at his desk, again. She worried about him in moments like those, even if she’d never had the courage to voice her concerns aloud. Fearing his wrath, she didn’t dare to wake him. She only ever shut down his monitors. Sorted through his paperwork. Draped blankets over his shoulders. Mayuri had worked such long hours, even then, during a time of relative peace, and yet nobody ever seemed to question the reason for his work ethic. Nobody knew him well enough to ask, and nobody cared enough for him to protest. Mayuri, himself, had been far too devoted to his pursuit of knowledge to ever so much as tend to his own growing exhaustion.

Nemu had been the one to pick up his slack, in that regard. Always tending to him. It was only ever Nemu who knew that he could still feel tired in that inhuman body of his, carved in ebony and ivory. Hard and immovable as stone, itself. 

To others, he was a statue. A living myth and a walking legend. Infamous, always preceded by his own reputation. To Nemu, he was only a man on a rock. A great man, perhaps, but a man, all the same. It was only in front of her that he would dare to show any evidence of it. 

Even so, it startled him to see the crumpled drawing that lay beneath her journal entries.

It dated back to her early childhood days, seen through a lens of faded sepia instead of bold, rose tint. More sorrowful nostalgia than fond remembrance. He stared at it and shuddered. 

His own face smiled back at him. 

It was a kind smile, lopsided, drawn in crayon and oil pastel. It was a smile that Mayuri was certain he’d never worn in reality. It was only Nemu’s perception of him, at the time, back when she was young enough to need a guardian more than a mentor and master. 

Back when he still held her hand.

He looked _kind_, with his long hair and his bare face. He couldn’t recall a time when he had ever looked like that. He hadn’t been seen bare-faced by anyone other than Nemu since he’d first arrived in the slums of Rukongai as a boy, young, and weak, and timid. Coltish, his pupils trembling, legs, shivering, with scrapes on his knees and dirt beneath his fingernails.

That was the person she’d captured in her artwork. The colt instead of the viper. 

Mayuri ran his thumb over the faded wax and felt an odd, unspeakable feeling in the pit of his chest: curiosity that morphed into cold realization, and then to dread and something horribly akin to common embarrassment. It was shame – shame at his own stupidity. Even a man as intelligent as he was had been fool enough to be struck by the fleeting, pointless notion that he had ought to ask Nemu, herself, if that was what she truly thought he looked like. 

As though he’d forgotten, for a moment, that she was dead and long since buried.

Foolish, indeed. Nemu was gone, and he was far beyond the point of asking her anything.


	2. Chapter 2

That smell, the concentrated essence of human filth – blood, piss, shit, sweat, bile – seeped beneath his doorway, a wretched miasma. The entrances of the SRDI were hermetically sealed, but Mayuri swore he could smell it, all the same. Oh, yes. He saw it coming. He raised his head, his joints, creaking from the rust, and cast his gaze towards the door. Slowly, cautiously, the head of the viper emerged from the still, murky waters. 

He could smell it. 

He caught onto the scent ages before he discovered the source. Without so much as an invitation or a mere announcement of his arrival, Zaraki burst through the double doors like a fission bomb, as though ripping them from the hinges. The sound and the fury vaporized him, melting the flesh from his bones. Faced with the horrors of Armageddon, Mayuri stared back, unblinking. Expressionless.

The hapless intern that Zaraki had coerced into aiding his unauthorized entry trailed behind him timidly. Worrying her lower lip, the girl tugged at her lab coat and scurried past them both, muttering careless apologies that were, somehow, even more meaningless than the shallow, impersonal condolences that Mayuri had received in spades, as of late. 

Staring, burning holes through her back, he felt the sting of anger prickling beneath his skin. Mayuri’s blood pressure always ran low, but he swore, at that moment, he could feel it skyrocket, bursting through the roof and piercing the moon. He dropped his pen onto the table with an audible clatter. Zaraki, however, didn’t seem to notice his chagrin. Ignoring Mayuri’s darkening expression, twisting with bitter contempt, the man plowed on, knocking into a table full of paperwork as he made his way into the laboratory. Meticulously organized documents cascaded to the floor like autumn leaves, right alongside his sinking heart. 

“What’re you doing here? Thought you were supposed to be on medical leave,” the boar laughed, mouth wide open, tusks bared. With that lopsided smile slipping away, Zaraki dipped his fingers into the neckline of his robe and tugged it down, exposing the hem of his bloodied bandages. “Well, I ain’t one to talk. I couldn’t sit around all day, either. Ended up sneaking out and picking a few fights; opened up my wounds all over again. Kotetsu won’t be happy about that. Hell, she won’t be happy with either of us, when we’re shitting all over her orders.” 

“And, pray tell, what do you imagine she will do to address that noncompliance? Do you imagine that she could ever muster the courage to reprimand me? She hardly has Unohana’s fortitude. If I so much as raised my voice to her, that woman would scurry back to her clinic with her tail between her legs, just as she always has.”

“That’s one hell of a warm welcome. You’ll scare the girl off before she even gets settled in her captain’s seat – not like she’d try to lecture you in the first place, when we all know that’s pointless. You’re the biggest workaholic in Sereitei. Doctor’s orders or not, all thirteen squads couldn’t keep you out of this lab.” Tactless as ever, Zaraki continued on with reckless abandon, speaking casually as though they were old friends instead of distant acquaintances at best and full impediments to each other’s progress at worst. The beast pulled a chair to the table and sat across from him, slouching far enough to snap a weaker man’s spine in two. “Should’ve known from the start you’d be working. Can’t believe I even wasted my time checking the barracks.” 

Mayuri didn’t bother to hide his displeasure, his scowl, deepening.

“Oh? Were you looking for me?” 

“Yeah, you got a minute?”

“For you? No, I don’t.” 

Feigning pleasantries with an unwashed troglodyte was not at all how Mayuri had planned to spend his evening, after all. 

“Come on. It ain’t like I’m here to beg for favors. I just want to talk for a bit. And I can think of a hundred guys who’d kill to have a chance to spend this quality time with me: get in on my training secrets. Maybe convince me to spar.”

“I can’t imagine how you would ever conclude that I would be counted amongst their numbers. You and I have nothing to discuss. We have no common interests. No shared ideals. In fact, if I remember correctly – and I always do – the only time that you have ever spoken to me has been to provide unsolicited and unwarranted criticism. For the sake of civility, I may endure your insipid squawking in the common halls, but do not expect me to tolerate such insolence within the confines of my own laboratory.”

While surely not intimidated, Zaraki silenced himself regardless – opening his mouth and closing it after a brief moment’s pause to consider his next course of action. When Mayuri, with the full intention of ignoring his presence, however, went to reach for a beaker, suddenly, the ogre jumped into action, tugging it from his grasp and setting it aside. Slamming it down onto the table.

“Look, I didn’t come here to talk shit about you, if that’s what you’re thinking. So you can quit puffing up your feathers. I just...” He ran his hand through his messy hair, his gaze, trailing up to the corner of the room. Averting eye contact. It wasn’t nearly fear as much as it was… something akin to embarrassment. “I thought I’d see how you were doing. We all had some rough patches since the war, but yours were rougher than most. You looked like hell coming out of that healing tank.”

Instead of making a quick grab for his beaker, as he very well should have, Mayuri couldn’t help but glance up at him, curious. Golden eyes, sharp and shrewd, studied Zaraki’s movements from behind the veil of rising smoke, twisting from polished vials. It was rare for a man of Zaraki’s confidence to fumble over his words like a timid schoolgirl, and that, admittedly, stirred his interest. Perhaps he could humor him, if only once.

“My, how very generous of you to grace me with your concern. Though it is rather early on in your own recovery process to stick your nose in the affairs of others, isn’t it? You’re still limping, yourself, Zaraki,” he taunted, a snide grin, spreading across his face. Cancerous. His eyes narrowed, crinkling playfully at the corners. “Perhaps you should pay more attention to your own wounds than to mine.” 

“I’m fine,” the ogre dismissed, stretching his limbs. “I’ve healed up for the most part. You know me: I can take a few hits. But your division and the Fourth are just support staff. If everything’s fine, you guys never even set foot on the battlefield. Hell, I can count on one hand the number of times you took to the front lines over the years, Kurotsuchi. Must’ve been hell, getting your legs snapped like that, when the worst you deal with day to day are paper cuts.”

“Was that meant to be a feeble attempt at empathy? Accusing me of weakness?” Clearly, Zaraki knew nothing about him, if he thought him so fragile. Mayuri was a man who had butchered himself in the name of science, carving into his own flesh, his scalpel, slow and steady. Bursting his tendons. Warm blood, viscous, trickling down his fingertips. He was a man who had withered away in the darkness of the Maggot’s Nest for decades, trapped alongside the worst that Sereitei had to offer – and who walked away with his head held high, at the end of it all. “Before you dare to drag my name through the mud any further, I would ask you to recall, Zaraki, just who crushed whom during our last, fateful encounter. I am not as helpless as you presume. You would do well to remember that, if you would like to avoid sparking a similar incident in the future. Remember that men who vex me do not tend to live long enough to speak of the consequences.”

“Hold on – was that a threat? Are you threatening me?” Zaraki growled, squinting down at him. Slowly processing his words. “You arrogant little –”

Mayuri steadied his stance, preparing himself for war, but the clamor, the violence of battle, never came. Instead of flipping the table and starting a riot, blood and broken glassware flying through the room, Zaraki wove trembling fingers through his matted, black hair and let out a shuddering sigh. 

“Go on,” Mayuri prompted. “What did you intend to call me? By all means, don’t cut yourself short for my sake. I’m certain that I’ve heard far worse from men far better than you could ever hope to be.” 

He was provoking him, and needlessly, too, but he just couldn’t repress that morbid desire to poke and prod at the slumbering beast. If curiosity killed the cat, Mayuri had a thousand graves to his name. It was only the lingering pull of satisfaction that dug its nails into the earth to drag him up from the abyss of death, time and time again. 

“You’re making it real damn hard for me to keep it civil, here,” Zaraki hissed through clenched teeth, his jaw, tight with simmering anger. It took him a moment to compose himself, grinding his teeth until his joints popped. 

“Civility has never been your strong suit.”

“That’s funny, coming from you.” He shook his head, then, as though snapping himself from a trance. “Look, Kurotsuchi, I wasn’t trying to insult you, and I don’t want to start a fight. The only reason I came here is because I know you’ve been going through some hard times, lately. And even though you screwed me over and stabbed me in the back – and don’t even think I ain’t pissed at you for that... you did good, beating Pernida and saving our asses when I couldn’t. I know you’ve been hit with a lot worse, and it probably doesn’t bother you that he broke your legs and wore you out, but I figured I owed you enough to see how you were holding up after that fight. Especially after losing Nemu. Or _because_ you lost Nemu. For a man to outlive his own kid… it’s fucked up. That kind of loss can break a man.”

He didn’t like the way the conversation was turning. Mayuri, always a bit of a recluse, was never the social sort. Though he could be bold and flamboyant at a distant glance, when it came to personal conversations about anything more intimate than a passing experiment, he felt alienated. Uncomfortable.

He didn’t know how to navigate it, the web of human bonding. Like an infant still learning to crawl, he slipped, and he stumbled – or he would have, in any case, had he given it another attempt. Instead, Mayuri held his tongue, his expression, darkening. He knew himself well enough to understand that his only winning move in such a situation was to say nothing at all. His horrid scowl alone was enough to drive others away more often than not, and yet Zaraki remained undeterred. Instead, when the oaf next spoke, he lowered his voice, speaking softly, for a change. As though Mayuri were fragile. As though he were soft. Zaraki’s voice barely rose above a whisper, like walking on thin ice, minding the cracks.

Such subtlety didn’t suit him. 

“I know you went back to working right away,” Zaraki continued, “and you act like you don’t give a damn about what happened to her – and maybe you don’t. But on the off chance that you’re not as bad as I always thought you were… I wanted to say that I’m sorry about your little girl. Losing a daughter is a deep, visceral kind of wound that a man never really gets over. And I think that what makes it even worse for guys like us is the fact that we’re the ones who’re always sent out to solve problems that’d be hopeless for anyone else. We’re the heavy hitters. We get shit done. But this time, when it’s our girls on the line, there’s nothing even we can do about it. You know, I get it. I really do. Hell, I figured I was probably the only guy you know who does.”

Mayuri froze, his scowl, melting from his face like molten lead, the tension, evaporating from his face to be replaced with something more akin to… weightlessness. Floating through the void of space.

“Kurotsuchi? You listening?”

“I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” he denied, raising his shields and shuttering the doors. Implementing emergency protocol in response to contagions. “I have not suffered an irreversible loss. Nemu was an experiment: an ambitious one, yes, but one that may still yet be replicated. I have collected detailed synthesis procedures and biological samples dating back decades. If needed, I can create another child, a superior specimen, within the work of a single moment.”

Those statements were specifically selected to elicit ire, and yet, perhaps because of the grotesque degree of his obliviousness, Zaraki didn’t take the bait. Instead of falling into the spiral of a pointless debate that Mayuri would have undoubtedly won due to the sheer difference in their intelligence, Zaraki focused in on what was perhaps the most relevant point. The point that Mayuri was unable to refute.

“Maybe you can make another daughter using the brain you picked up, but a clone isn’t the same thing as the person it came from, right?” Zaraki scratched at his hair, dandruff, falling onto his shoulders. “I don’t know much about science, but if twins brought up in different places can end up being nothing like each other, then maybe this new kid won’t be anything like Nemu at all. Hell, will she even remember you once you bring her back?” 

No.

She wouldn’t.

Any progress that Nemu had made, along with any history forged between them, was gone. Mayuri was a giver and taker of life, but he was far from divine. Replicating human memory, understanding and instilling the emotion elicited by it, was an ability beyond his reach. In that essence, starting the Nemuri Project all over again for the eighth time was exactly that: starting over. Wiping the slate clean to build a new person from the ground up, to set a fresh foundation of existence, independent of any past iterations. 

He’d known that from the beginning. He’d known it for ages, and yet it was only then, pushed by Zaraki’s pestering, that he was truly forced to dwell on it. To accept the fact that he could not reverse the irreversible. 

Mayuri, expressionless, swallowed thickly around the lump in his throat. 

“Shit,” Zaraki muttered, scratching at the back of his sunburned neck. “I shouldn’t have said that. That was – what do people call it? Insensitive? …It was insensitive.”

Ridiculous. Of all people, Zaraki had no business speaking so softly to him, as though he would shatter at a single harsh word. The china shop to Zaraki’s metaphorical bull.

“What of it? You came to a correct conclusion. That gives you the right to say whatever you’d like. I was never one to deny the truth – and it is hardly as though I am particularly incensed by your apparent insensitivity. I was never prone to mourning over failed experiments, reversible or not. If I wept for every rat that died on my operating table, I would have flooded this world with tears. Similarly, whether Nemu’s successor has any recollection of me whatsoever is completely irrelevant. There is no use in pining after that which has already been lost and that which may never be recovered. My best option, at this point, is to learn from my previous failure, put it behind me, and begin the experiment again. There is nothing more to it than that.”

“Nothing to it, huh? If you want to look at Nemu like she’s only some failed experiment, sure. I guess you can brush it off like you do with everything else.” Zaraki shrugged, feining nonchalance, even as a flash of disdain for him, _disgustmen_. About how we’re annoying, and loud, and stupid. But Nemu never let anyone badmouth you. No matter what kind of messed up shit you pulled or how many people ganged up against you, she always came to your defense. Like you have good reasons for doing the things you do. And for being the way you are.”

Though Zaraki’s words held no scientific merit, they held him like a spell. Focused, single-mindedly, on the drivel spilling out of that ogre’s mouth, Mayuri snapped back to reality only when he heard a quiet crack from below him. Golden eyes glanced down. His smooth, painted nail had splintered against the table from the force of his grip.

“That’s hardly surprising,” Mayuri confessed, at last, though his unreadable expression never wavered. He flicked away the broken chips of nail polish. “Nemu was always eager to please.” 

Up until the very end.

“Yeah. She took good care of you, didn’t she? Way back in the day, when times were good, Yachiru used to complain about how Nemu was always late to their meetings, after getting caught up doing your housework. There was a rumor going around that you’d get so focused on your experiments, you’d forget to eat if Nemu didn’t cook for you,” Zaraki began, a slight smile poking through his tense features, “I thought there was no chance you’d ever be that spacey, but I guess the old story was true: you’ve lost weight. You’ve always been shrimpy, but you’ve even skinnier than usual, now that Nemu’s gone.”

Without thinking, glancing down, Mayuri touched his fingertips against his stomach, confirming Zaraki’s suspicions as certainly as if he’d voiced his agreement. Regardless, there was no point in denying it. He’d been so busy, as of late, that he rarely, if ever, found time for himself. Perhaps he’d missed more meals than he should have. Perhaps there were now piles of laundry strewn about his bedroom, when he couldn’t be bothered to waste time picking it up – and when he was still too reclusive to allow his servants to set foot inside of his private chambers. 

“Am I?” he asked without truly anticipating an answer. He closed his eyes – a sardonic smile, spreading across his face. “Remembering to take my meals was easier, perhaps, when I could simply turn around and find a tray full of my favorite dishes waiting for me at my desk,” Mayuri confessed, fully candid, for once, now that Zaraki had forced his way past his barriers, distractions, and all of his lies. “I can’t be bothered to keep track of such things for myself. I always have other, more important matters occupying my thoughts.”

“Quit making excuses,” Zaraki taunted, laughing. “I bet you’re just bad in the kitchen and can’t stand the taste of your own cooking.”

“Blame it on a lack of practice. I haven’t cooked for myself since Nemu first learned how to operate a stove – nor am I interested in changing the status quo. I’ve always detested housework.”

He’d expected a bit of a debate, perhaps, or a gentle scolding, as Akon had once tried to deliver, before Mayuri had put a quick and decisive end to such belittlement. Instead, however, Zaraki’s hand clamped down upon his own, suddenly, pulling him up from his seat and dragging him towards the door. 

“That settles it,” Zaraki declared with a confident grin, “I ain’t about to let you starve yourself because you ‘can’t be bothered’ to remember to eat. Come on. I’ll take you my favorite yakitori place.”

“Excuse me?” he sputtered with indignant shock, “You will do no such thing. Let me go.” 

Mayuri dug his heels against the tile, but Zaraki had always been the stronger of the two of them, when it came to brute force. He may as well have been a ragdoll, light as a feather, pulled along the playground by its owner, snot-nosed and lumbering.

“I don’t think so. Somebody’s gotta keep you alive now that Nemu’s gone. I don’t believe for a second she fought so hard – until there was nothing left of her – for me and the guys from my team. No, she did it for you.” His unspoken words rang clearly: she did it for her _father_. “If I just stood back and let you wither up and die after all of that, it’d be like spitting on her grave. And it’d be one hell of a way to repay you, too, after you went and killed Pernida for us. So the way I have it planned, this is what’s going to happen: you’re getting out of this lab, you’re getting something to eat, and after all this is over, you’re getting some of that mandatory bed rest whether you like it or not.”

“Don’t take that tone with me,” he hissed. “Perhaps you’ve grown accustomed to barking out orders, but I am hardly one of your fawning sycophants from the Eleventh. I have no intention of following you anywhere,” Mayuri hissed, worming his hand out of Zaraki’s grasp. Disgusted, he rubbed furiously at his wrist, as though he’d been touched by a leper. 

“’Intend to’ or not, you’re going.” 

Zaraki took a step forward. Though Mayuri’s first instinct was to back away, he stood his ground, just as he always did. 

“And how do you imagine that will come to pass? If I refuse to follow willingly, will you break my legs and hoist me over your shoulder? Like a brute?” 

“If you want to make this harder than it has to be,” Zaraki shrugged with a hint of mischief behind his single eye. “You’ll be fine, even if I rough you up a little – since you’re ‘not as helpless as I think you are,’ anyway.”

“By all means, feel free to test the validity of that claim for yourself.” 

His fingertips traced the hilt of Ashisogi Jizō, though he made no move to draw the blade. It was all simple posturing. Mayuri wasn’t a fool. Proud as he could be, at times, as confident as he was, he knew full well that his chances of victory in a fair fight were slim to none. His swordplay was sloppy: poor coordination, slow reflexes, no strength behind his blows. The only ways he ever won his battles were through innovation and creativity. 

Knowing that, he was reluctant to burn resources on a pointless duel. Poisons and serums were expensive to craft. Though he would defend himself if necessary, he wouldn’t be instigating anything if he had nothing to gain. 

Zaraki’s eye trailed down towards his sword. His playful smirk wavered, and he went silent. The oaf had finally stopped his blathering. Instead of being comforted by the return of familiar silence, however, Mayuri felt a sense of deep unease come over him, standing there under the scrutiny of Zaraki’s unblinking stare.

What was that look on his face? 

He couldn’t interpret it; he’d always had trouble with empathy. The changes in a person’s voice, subtle inflections, the minute twitches of facial expressions, had always been a puzzle that he’d struggled to piece together. He could identify individual components but could never see the bigger picture. He couldn’t understand what any of it meant. It unsettled him – an unreadable expression. It was only when Zaraki spoke that Mayuri realized his expression was one of pity.

“It’s just a dinner, Kurotsuchi. Hell, it’s a dinner _I’m_ buying. You’re acting like I’m threatening to drag you to the vet and cut off your jewels. You really putting up a fight over this?”

“Oh, I assure you, I’ve done worse for less.”

He did nothing he didn’t want to. Not anymore.

In retrospect, Mayuri didn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t for Zaraki to relent, hands raised in mock surrender, as he stepped back towards the exit. Before leaving, however, Zaraki leaned against the door frame for a moment and… looked at him. 

Like a lab rat. 

A parasite beneath his microscope.

“Fine,” the boar sighed, shaking his head, “If you’re really that against it, I won’t force you. But before I head out and we never talk about this again, I gotta know: is it me you don’t like or just the thought of going out and being social for once in your life?”

A strange question from an equally strange man. 

Mayuri tilted his head, feigning nonchalance, as he always did, untouchable in his astral realm, consumed with thoughts of greater, better forms of being. A simple man, playing at being anything more as he reached ever higher.

“Attempting to discern my motivations? How presumptuous. Have you considered the fact that, perhaps, I’ve never enjoyed yakitori? The reason could very well be something as simple as that.”

That little quip earned him a genuine laugh, deep and bellowing, stemming from the belly of that big, hulking brute. It echoed through the walls of his laboratory, threatening to shatter the windows.

“What – is yakitori too low class for you? Too cheap and dirty for the great Kurotsuchi?” 

“Whatever gave you that impression?”

“Look at you, with your jewelry, and your soft, little hands. You look like you have expensive tastes. Like the nobles.” 

“Hardly. Perhaps I am not particular eager to sit outside in a street stall beside a burning grill, but I am still a far cry from Kuchiki.”

“Are you?” Zaraki scoffed, though his playful tone had returned. In a way, that came as great relief. Worry suited the boar even less than subtlety. “Maybe you’re not out there leading some noble clan, but from the first time I saw you, I always thought you were –” He shook his head, laughing. The sound, muffled through his gritted teeth. “Never mind. Forget about it.”

“What?” Mayuri prompted, his eyes, narrowing. “You thought that I was _what_?”

A monster?

A criminal given a second chance at life only by the grace of Urahara?

A weakling with no place in Gotei 13?

“You really want to push me on this?” Zaraki sighed, scratching at his jawline. “Fine, but I don’t know a good way to say it. It’s not that I ever thought you were a noble like Kuchiki; it was obvious you weren’t. It’s more like... when I saw you for the first time, I got this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. I guess it was uneasiness – like I was looking at something I didn’t understand. It was the same kind of feeling I’d get when I sat in my village’s temple when I was a kid. Looking up at the statues of the gods and wondering what they thought about people like me. I hadn’t felt that way in years, until you came along. That was one hell of a throwback.” He smiled down at him, then, bold and daring as much as it was teasing. It wasn’t an expression he was accustomed to seeing, particularly when directed at him. 

“Yeah, that’s pretty accurate,” Zaraki continued. “I guess it’s not wrong to say that you were everything I thought the gods were like, when I was human. All the people in my village were obsessed with the gods. Everything we did was for them: these higher beings with painted faces and bright eyes. There was no proof they even existed, but we prayed to them. Day in, day out. For protection. For rain. Everyone always told me the gods were good and honest, but I never bought into any of that shit. It wasn’t that I didn’t think they existed – but I didn’t think they were good. Those gods, looking down on us from the clouds, were supposed to be better than us. They were supposed to know everything; they were supposed to be able to _do_ anything. It’s just that half the time, they couldn’t be bothered. They were so damn selfish that they’d let us all starve to death if we didn’t do everything they wanted. I could never understand that. When I died and got to Sereitei, and when I learned about the Shinigami, I was relieved, in a way. They were assholes, sure, but Shinigami weren’t some kind of higher beings. It wasn’t like I couldn’t understand them. They were just regular people with a lot of power – and some of them took advantage of it. When I joined up with Gotei 13, I was even more sure of that, but... then I met you. You walked through that gate, with your gold eyes and your painted face, looking like you fell right out of the clouds. Then you opened your fucking mouth, and out poured this philosophical bullshit – and I knew you were the real deal. It’s weird, thinking so hard about it. But you’re exactly the kind of ‘god’ people bled for in my village, Kurotsuchi. You got all this power, all this knowledge, but no one can ever figure out what you want for it. Like you’re a god that only lets it rain half the time, even after thirteen virgins bleed out on your mountain and the village spends seven days praising your name.” He shook his head, smiling. “I guess those’re the kinds of tastes I thought you’d have. Figured you’d be used to blood and gold on your altar. Fancy shit. You don’t seem like the type of guy that’d be happy with rice and beans, anyway. Or yakitori, now that you mention it.”

Zaraki was smiling, seemingly soft and lighthearted, but there was a deep scrutiny in his gaze that even Mayuri, in all his absence of empathy, couldn’t miss. Zaraki had thought him to be close to divinity. That had been Mayuri’s intention from the start, dressing the way he did: to be larger than life, to speak without words. But to know that he had succeeded was...

It was flattery at its finest, if anything else. Pride swelled deep within him, as did a sense of long delayed accomplishment. 

And perhaps just a trace of human gratitude. 

“Flattery won’t get you anywhere,” he deflected, maintaining his poise. Zaraki’s laughter echoed like temple bells.

“You’re the only guy I know who’d hear something like that and actually be proud of it.”

“Of course. I have an image of divinity to maintain, all things considered.”

“You’re an ass,” he chuckled. “Knew I shouldn’t have told you any of that.” Despite Zaraki’s claims, however, there wasn’t a single hint of regret in his voice, even as he furrowed his brow, feigning irritation. It baffled him. For once, Mayuri really didn’t know what to make that old boar. “Well, fine. Since I can’t take it back, and if that’s how you want to play, then what kind of offering suits your tastes? Is sushi good enough? Or do you still want those thirteen virgins?”

He didn’t know what it was: Zaraki’s good humor or the fact that he’d flattered him. Perhaps he’d inhaled a little too much smoke from his latest experiment. Or perhaps, without Nemu, he was simply lonely – and even Zaraki’s company was better than no company at all. Mayuri found himself overcome by the strangest notion that if Zaraki was eager to take him somewhere, then perhaps it would do him some good to allow it. He could feel his barriers coming apart. Marble crumbling. Goldwork and silver leaf, unraveling at the seams. 

He said nothing at all – but his expression softened. And to a man with empathy, to Zaraki, that signaled his surrender as clear as day, white flags waving. The ogre motioned towards the exit and beckoned him to follow. 

“Hurry up, if you’re coming,” Zaraki practically commanded, holding the door open despite its feeble, automated attempts to close. If he forced it any longer, the alarms would start blaring. It was for that reason and that reason alone, surely, that Mayuri decided to make haste, after all.

“So impatient,” he countered, quickly turning off his monitors and hot plates, before joining the overgrown oaf who always had towered over him. “Remember that you stand in the presence of the god who rules over your pathetic, nameless village. You would do well to show some deference for once in your life.”

“You think I’d do that now when I didn’t back then? I pissed on your shrine, once, Kurotsuchi. You didn’t see that from your throne up in the clouds?”

There was change in his expression, again. 

Any trace of pity that Mayuri had previously observed in Zaraki was now replaced by something that he failed to immediately recognize, despite its clarity. It was a common enough expression, though one that was rarely shown to him. He’d seen it from one, perhaps two people in his lifetime. It was the way his mother had looked at him, back when he was young enough for selfishness and introversion to still be considered endearing. And it was the way that Nemu had looked at him in secret, when she hadn’t thought that he was looking back. Though it was difficult to recognize at first glance, when Mayuri scrutinized Zaraki’s expression, he could have sworn that it was one of fondness.

He’d had a witty retort at the tip of his tongue. Something hot and scathing, meant to wound, if only to showcase his own intelligence. It was something that would have made him feel like a god. But Zaraki’s smile stunned him like a flashbang. 

Mayuri stared back, silent, his hand, hovering over the light switch.


	3. Chapter 3

Zaraki slid his untouched plate across the table. A subtle twitch tugged at the corner of his lips: a vague, undiscernible smile that never reached his one, remaining eye. 

“That’s all you, Kurotsuchi,” he insisted, inching the plate away further still. “I never liked sea urchins.”

“Nor do you enjoy anything else, clearly. This is the third plate you’ve pawned off onto me this evening.”

“It’s my own damn luck. They’re serving up a bunch of fish I don’t like,” Zaraki shrugged, his tone, strangely nonchalant, when considering the price. It wasn’t exactly conveyor belt grade sushi; their omakase order was expensive, even by a Captain’s standards. 

Mayuri would have never purchased anything like it on his own. When there were so many novels to add to his library and so much jewelry to craft, he could hardly justify spending his savings so frivolously, watching it spiral down the metaphorical drain. To have been in Zaraki’s position, to have wasted all of that money, would have set him off into a rage – and yet the boar didn’t show any outward signs of irritation. Mayuri suspected that it wasn’t genuine patience that kept him so composed. Instead, he wondered whether Zaraki wasn’t feigning disinterest out of a sense of courtesy. Considering his notoriously ravenous appetite, after all, after refusing so many dishes, Zaraki must have been starving. 

Perhaps a closer companion, a decent man, would have offered to go somewhere else: somewhere that better suited Zaraki’s tastes. Somewhere like a filthy yakitori stand, where Mayuri would be condemned to sit beside a pit of burning coals, staring into the fire, frozen in horror, as the makeup dripped from his face in rivulets. 

It wasn’t a sacrifice that he was willing to make, when he barely knew the sense of the word. After all, he’d been a boy who’d stolen daifukumochi from a shopkeeper’s window, only to blame it on the village dogs. Standing by, impassive, as the mother and her pups were stuffed into sacks and dragged to the riverbed. It hadn’t crossed his mind to intervene, when the lives of a few filthy mongrels would never outweigh the trouble of inconveniencing himself. 

And Mayuri was ever a man of habit. 

As a child, he’d failed to muster the compassion to help a family of dogs, and as a grown man, he was even less inclined to help a boar, of all lowly creatures. And so, wven when he knew that a good man would have refused Zaraki’s offer, glancing down at the uni, he took the plate without hesitation and with nary a word of gratitude. 

He didn’t mind a little gluttony when someone else was footing the bill. 

“By the way, thanks for coming out tonight,” Zaraki said suddenly, attempting to make forced, casual conversation where Mayuri would have much preferred silence. “I didn’t think you’d actually agree to this. But it’s nice to get out for a bit, now that everyone’s moving on from the war, don’t you think? Things are finally getting back to normal around here. Night life’s bustling just like it used to.”

“Is that so?” Mayuri replied, completely dismissive. He didn’t even bother to hide the fact that he wasn’t paying attention. Only Zaraki, with his single eye and complimentary brain cell, would ever miss such a blatant sign. 

“Yeah. I’m guessing you never saw it for yourself. You don’t get out much, do you?”

“Of course not. The thoughts of the average man fail to span the realm of anything more interesting than serial dramas, designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Taking that knowledge into consideration, socializing has never interested me in the slightest.”

“What _do_ you like?” Zaraki asked, leaning in to look at him closer, almost incredulous. “Other than sitting in your lab, alone, in the dark?”

Oh, Mayuri was fond of much more than work. His interests were diverse and numerous, spanning art and fashion, literature and botany. He’d always loved a good game of shōgi. Ever since the day his grandfather had taught him, a mere boy, the rules to a grown man’s game, sitting him down in the garden with a confident smirk – and then a nervous chuckle, _’beginner’s luck’_ – Mayuri had gone proudly undefeated. 

Until the day he thought to pass his skills down unto Nemu. 

Overcome with rage, he’d swiped his arm over the table, sending the board and pieces flying – and yet he still remembered it: that feeling. Rising above the humiliation and the bitter sting of defeat, was the strange, unexpected balm of accomplishment. There was a certain pride in witnessing the evolution of a subject who had surpassed his own lofty capabilities. He wondered if that wasn’t how his grandfather had felt, praising his cleverness – but never again accepting another match. 

Embarrassment and pride.

Swallowing thickly, Mayuri glanced at Zaraki, then back down towards his tea.

“Apart from my studies, I don’t devote time to much of anything. My focus is far too directed to be sidelined by pointless distractions.”

With that answer, he’d expected to have bored Zaraki enough to end their fruitless conversation, and yet the boar pressed on. 

“That’s dull. Really, all you like is science?”

“Science and circumstance,” he elaborated, just to pass the time. “There is little point in designing weapons if I lack the opportunity to use them. Though, considering the political climate, all that I can do, now, in that regard, is wait.”

“The hell’s that supposed to mean?” Zaraki asked, his single eye, blown wide with disbelief. “The way you’re talking, you almost make it sound like you want to go back to war.”

For a moment, Mayuri considered saying nothing at all. Smalltalk and feigned pleasantries, after all, were never his strong suit. Even so, there was something unexpectedly compelling about Zaraki’s question. Something inherently philosophical that caught his interest. Instead of arguing back, Mayuri let those words sink in, pondering them, as he sat, silent and pensive, cradling his ochoko cup. 

“That was surprisingly perceptive, coming from you,” he teased, stroking his thumb against the rim. “In all honestly, I wouldn’t have protested had the war dragged on for an eternity.” 

“Didn’t think a skinny little guy like you would want to spend the rest of your life fighting.”

“You’re mistaken. What I enjoy about wartime isn’t necessarily the combat, itself, as much as it is… the urgency. The pressing need for innovation to address an evolving conflict that cannot be won through force, alone. Honestly, I actually miss the stress,” he sighed, chuckling under his breath at the absurdity of it all – explaining himself to Zaraki, of all people. “The endless list of projects and all the late nights. The deadlines and the tension. In times of peace, when men want for nothing, they become complacent and lose the will to strive for progress. What place is there for a scientist in a world like that?” 

What place was there for _him_? 

“We need the threat of wolves lurking in the woods,” he continued, “Without that, I fear the common sheep will grow content to feed and grow fat, heads down, never once looking up. In that regard, I find the thought of prolonged peace to be both incredibly discouraging and insufferably dull. It’s always been an unfortunate proclivity of mine: succumbing to ennui. I fear it is a curse that affects only the hyper-competent and chronically dissatisfied.” Overcome by a sense of growing melancholia, Maryui hesitated, his tone, losing its usual booming confidence. He stared down into his cup of sake, mesmerized by the pensiveness of his own expression. “It’s… actually rather sad, isn’t it?”

For a moment, Zaraki said nothing at all, and Mayuri was foolish enough to think, for a moment, that he had understood – 

Until he burst into roaring laughter, loud and boisterous – and completely unsympathetic.

“That’s one hell of a sob story,” he mocked, “I’m tearing up just hearing about it. There are people who are crippled from battle, but the real tragedy of the war isn’t all the death and damage – it’s the fact that Kurotsuchi’s _bored_ now that it’s over. What a fucking tragedy. It must be terrible having to go back to living like a normal guy instead of sitting around, making human bombs.” 

Bellowing laughter, bold and shameless, echoed forth from the ogre’s bottomless belly for what seemed like a veritable eternity. Though it tested his patience, wearing away at his very last nerve, in truth, Mayuri couldn’t truly blame him. His inability to cope with boredom following the war did seem remarkably petty, when put into context. Even so, Mayuri had always had his reasons for behaving the way he did; it simply wasn’t often that he ever cared to share them. His thoughts were too deep, too complex, to be understood by those of small mind. 

Like explaining nuclear physics to rats. 

Staring back at Zaraki’s unimpressed expression, however, watching the boar’s single eye narrow in silent judgment, infuriated him – and he found the need to try, regardless. He didn’t know why the man was getting under his skin. Perhaps it was that jovial tone: the unfamiliar way in which he was teasing him. 

Or perhaps more accurately, it was only the sake talking. 

“One’s interpretation of what constitutes a tragedy is relative. People die. It is what they do. Whether they fall by the dozens or the thousands is inconsequential. Human suffering is an unavoidable reality and one that does not affect me in the slightest. What I refuse to tolerate is the concept of my own boredom. All mammals, even rats, are capable of sensing bodily harm, but it is only _men_ who are plagued with the burden of boredom. To be denied external stimulation, the potential for growth, is to be stripped of one’s humanity.” He sounded strangely passionate at that moment – a change from his usual flippant tone, as though he hadn’t a care in the world. “Hunger and pain are nothing more than passing annoyances. In the Maggot’s Nest, I encountered both in spades. No matter the severity, however, torture and starvation were never anything more than temporary setbacks. They were forgettable. What I could not ignore, what instilled within me the deepest sense that I was wasting away, was nothing short of the boredom. Now that, above all else, was truly insufferable. Compared to an eternity of boredom, death would be a mercy.”

It was the first display of true earnestness that Mayuri had permitted himself to make in ages, though it was only after some time had passed in awkward silence that he realized just how much he’d revealed. He wasn’t certain if the aftermath of being candid was more frightening or exciting – or perhaps an intolerable combination of both. Dread overpowered him more than anything else. Purposefully avoiding eye contact, Mayuri felt the strangest urge to shatter his cup against the wall. 

As though sensing the growing tension, Zaraki sighed, drawing out the minutes further as he reached for the carafe. Though Mayuri knew that he’d had far too much to drink that evening, he let him fill his cup, all the same. It was good sake, fragrant and clean. Expensive. 

The strangest thought passed through his mind that the sake’s subtle scent suited his tastes far better than Zaraki’s. 

“I get you,” the boar said suddenly, breaking the silence. “Just having enough to eat, not being hurt or sick – those are bare bones basics. What you’re talking about is the difference between surviving and living, right?”

“No,” Mayuri refuted, avoiding Zaraki’s scrutinizing gaze. He could have sworn, at that moment, that if he only looked up, the boar’s single eye would see right through him. “You should disregard what I’ve said. I admit to getting caught up in the moment; I rambled on for far too long about something that should have very well gone unsaid. It was all nonsense. Words unworthy of the air required to recite them.”

“No, I think you have a point,” Zaraki shrugged. “A man can’t eat and sleep all day. Everyone needs something more than that to keep them going – or keep them from going crazy.” He leaned back, showcasing a subtle smile. “For me, that something was always fighting. Pushing myself and getting stronger. If I got thrown in some cage with nothing to do and no one to fight, even if I had all the food in the world, it’d be torture. So, you don’t have to get embarrassed about it. I get it. If you need to be busy to feel like you got a life worth living, then peacetime’s got to be tough for you. Hell, I’m getting stir-crazy, too, now that there’s no one left to fight. My sword arm’s getting rusty,” he complained, though his subtle smile soon turned playful, crinkling the corner of his eye. “Still strong enough to kick the crap out of you, though. You only got me last time because you cheated.”

“Are you making excuses?” Mayuri scolded – though, perhaps still glowing in the warmth of Zaraki’s empathy, his tone, for once, was not entirely unkind. “Pathetic. As a self-proclaimed ‘warrior,’ you should know full well that all is fair in love and war.” 

“Maybe if someone actually loved you, you wouldn’t be saying that.”

Grabbing the last piece of uni from Mayuri’s plate, Zaraki erupted with laughter, mouth full, spraying rice. It was disgusting. Horrid. And yet that laughter, bold and bright, echoed through the room like fireworks, shaking the shoji screen. In Mayuri’s long, grueling history, casual conversation had never come easily to him, and yet Zaraki almost made it seem normal. Mayuri wondered if that wasn’t how it felt to be an ordinary man, blind to the stars. Living in the moment and losing himself to simple pleasures. Either way, it simply wouldn’t do. If he spent too much time as a lamb, with his head down, content to be complacent, he feared that he would lose the drive to ever look back up. 

He had to remember that he was the wolf.

And yet, even while knowing that, even while understanding that it would have been better for him, in the long run, to have excused himself and left, instead, Mayuri sipped at his sake and played Zaraki’s game. 

“What do you know of love, when your own father never even graced you with a name?”

“Shit,” Zaraki chuckled, tangling his hand in his matted hair, “that was a low blow. Just proves my point: you only know to fight dirty.” 

“I don’t see any reason why I should interpret that as anything less than a glowing compliment. Unconventional tactics win my battles, verbal or otherwise, more often than not.”

“Well, it sure ain’t your swordplay that’s doing the job. You wave Jizō around like a fucking bubble wand. Where’d you learn to fight? The school of ribbon twirling?” It was a strange sight, watching Zaraki’s face light up with raucous laughter – only to die down slowly into a quiet hum that could have, from any other man, been perceived as pensive. “But you know, Kurotsuchi,” he continued, after a long moment’s pause, “Even if I give you shit about it, I got to admit, your schemes took down some big names over the years. Never met anyone who walked into battle half as ready as you are. Coming in with backup plans for your backup plans – and pulling backups for those, right out of your ass, when it all goes to shit.”

“Perhaps it is not that I overprepare so much as it is that you and the others have a very unfortunate tendency of rushing blindly into battle,” Mayuri hissed, as though scolding a child. “At the very first sight of an opponent, you drop everything and charge forth, blades drawn. And you have the gall, every single time, to have that shocked, wide-eyed look on your face, mouth agape, when your opponent turns out to be anything more than a mundane Hollow. Our foes have only grown stronger and more diverse in their methods with time. All of you should be accustomed to preparing for the unexpected, at this point, and yet it appears as though I am the only Captain in this group who ever deigns to tread cautiously. By the time I walk into battle, fully prepared to put an end to it all, you fools are lying dead by the wayside, leaving me to wade through your entrails and tag your corpses, afterwards.” 

“I’d apologize for the mess, but we can’t all be like you, sitting in the back of your little lab with your thumbs up your ass, waiting for your superweapon to heat up in the oven while the rest of us are fighting for our lives. Somebody’s gotta hold the line.”

“And that ‘somebody’ is a group better classified as cannon fodder. I wasn’t aware that the members of the Eleventh Division were competing for the dishonor of the title.”

“At least we got competitive spirit,” Zaraki shrugged, deadpan. “You ever look at how you fight? Poison and suicide bombs are a coward’s tactics. There’s no skill in using those. The only guys who’d pull dirty tricks like that are the ones that’re too weak to fight. Guys like you.” 

Being branded as a coward was nothing new to him, but to hear that his methods required no skill grated on his very last nerve. Before he could so much as argue that ridiculous, baseless point, however, Zaraki quickly explained himself. 

“I ain’t saying your job ain’t tough. There’s only a handful of people smart enough to do the crazy shit you do, but if you get your formulas right, you’ll win every time. There ain’t any challenge in that. Where’s the real fighting? Where’s the risk? Just you and the other guy, evenly matched, knowing things could go either way, if you ain’t careful about it.” 

“What, dare I ask, is so inherently appealing about the concept of gambling one’s life away in a ‘fair fight?’ I fail to see why I should engage in a battle that I could very well lose, when defeat would mean my death.”

“Are you that afraid of dying? It ain’t like that’s really the end. You’d get reincarnated.”

“As what? Statistically speaking, any particular individual has the greatest chance of being reincarnated as a starving girl in an impoverished nation. Though even that would be a favorable outcome to being reborn as a man of low potential and average intelligence, yet with the vague recollection that he was, at one point, something greater. It took a grueling effort to get to where I am, now. As such, I would like to maintain that status quo for as long as possible.”

“To make sure you’ll never die, will you go your entire life only picking fights you know you can win? Will you run away the rest of the time? That’s a coward’s talk, Kurotsuchi,” Zaraki scolded. 

“Call it whatever you’d like. When I passed, all those years ago, I left the human world believing that I had wasted my life’s potential. I had never believed in the gods. I was convinced that nothing awaited me, in death, but the void. Waking up in Rukongai was the undeserved second chance that I had never expected to receive. I still have ambitions to realize. Expectations to meet. I refuse to surrender my soul’s consciousness so easily. If staying behind the front lines and relying on unconventional tactics makes me a coward, then so be it.”

“There’s things out there a thousand times worse than dying in battle, you know? Pretty sure running away and living in disgrace is one of them. You want everyone to think you’re a liar and a cheat?” 

“And who ever called me that? Kaname? Yamamoto? Visit their graves and ask them what they think of courage and sacrifice. They fought fairly, risking their lives, relying on nothing more than their own physical strength, and yet look at where they are, now: buried in the very same earth as the criminals and cowards that you disparage. Worms, writhing in their eye sockets, all the same. All men are equal in death, Zaraki. When our stars go out, when we forget everything, we will hardly have the capacity to question how we lived, much less to concern ourselves with how others will deign to remember our morality or lack thereof. All that matters are the accomplishments that we make in this lifetime – not our intentions or our means of achieving them.”

“You think Nemu would be saying that?” Zaraki said, suddenly, muted.

Mayuri froze, picking at his broken nail. 

“What did you say?” 

“Maybe she’s can’t speak for herself, but you really think she wouldn’t have cared how you thought about her, now that she’s gone? You make it sound like nobody’s death but yours would ever matter. And bravery and honor are pointless – but Nemu fought a battle knowing she couldn’t win, hell, she _died_, for you. You think she wouldn’t have wanted you to remember how she fought with everything she had?”

“I’ve… never cared to think about it,” Mayuri remarked with a casual wave of his hand, feigning disinterest. Cruel as it was, it was true: he’d never once considered what was going through Nemu’s mind when she made that key decision to sacrifice all she was and all she ever could be, all of her latent potential, for nothing more than a man on a rock. When there was nothing he could do to change the past, Mayuri didn’t see a reason to focus on it. 

He didn’t understand why he should do that to himself.

“Then think about it, now,” Zaraki insisted, daring to reprimand him. “She wouldn’t have wanted you to remember her as maggot food. Would she? If you took her place, wouldn’t you want the same damn thing? Wouldn’t you have wanted her to remember you as a hero instead of a coward?” 

“How Nemu would have cared to remember me after my death was none of my concern,” he sighed, running his fingers through his meticulously styled hair, ruining hours of diligent work. “I was not her friend, nor was I her confidant. My intention was to lead her as a mentor and a master. If she could learn and excel under my tutelage, if she could become something greater than the sum of her parts, then it wouldn’t have mattered what she thought of me, following my death. I never wanted Nemu to admire me, Zaraki – I wanted to push her to _surpass_ me, even if it meant that she would remember me as nothing more than a tyrant. I wanted her to grow. I wanted her to live.”

He'd admitted all of that to prove a point, and yet it seemed to backfire more than anything else. Zaraki stared at him, silent. Mayuri had won their impromptu debate, certainly, and yet, instead of basking in usual sense of triumph, his victory left him feeling hollow, reminiscing of what he’d truly lost and all that he could never recover. 

“Hey, come on – don’t look at me like that,” Zaraki chuckled, his voice, warm and encouraging more so than mocking. “Brooding ain’t a good look for you.”

“I wasn’t… ‘brooding.’ I was merely lost in thought. A series of thoughts that you have rudely interrupted with your pointless drivel, mind you.” 

“My bad. Just thought you could use some cheering up,” Zaraki backtracked with startling amiability. “It’s hard to read you under all that makeup. I can never tell what you’re thinking.”

“Few men ever do.”

“Guess so. From as far back as I can remember, it always seemed like Nemu was the only person who ever really knew you. Her and Urahara, anyway. You guys always seemed pretty close.”

Mayuri froze, choking on his tea. He clamped his hand over his mouth, muffling his violent wheezing.

“What? …Me? Close to _Urahara_?” Mayuri sputtered. “Ridiculous! As though I would ever associate with that simpering buffoon out of my own free will. Urahara doesn’t know anything about me. Not my goals, not my preferences, not my hobbies –”

“I thought you said you didn’t have any hobbies.”

“That was a lie! I only said it to disinterest you, so that you would be quiet and stop pestering me – though my plan has clearly backfired.”

He hadn’t meant to raise his voice, nor had he intended to sound so defensive about something so completely irrelevant – but even after surpassing Urahara as a Captain and a scientist, both, all mentions of the man, all recollections of the time when he had served under him, instilled within Mayuri a sense of white-hot, scalding indignation. If he only had the power to rewrite time, he would have wiped all mentions of Urahara from his history, striking him from his personal Akashic record. Even when he knew that he should have held his tongue, whether it was due to the alcohol or his own seething bitterness, Mayuri doubled-down. 

“We are not ‘close,’” he insisted, placing heavy emphasis and each and every word. “In fact, I don’t recall a single instance when interacting with that drooling imbecile was anything short of a horrible, excruciating ordeal.”

“That’s not the way it looked to me,” Zaraki insisted, so noncommittal. 

“What are you talking about? We were always arguing!”

“Good friends argue the most,” he shrugged. “It was funny, the way he’d say things just to rile you up. Urahara could get you pissed off and ranting about the stupidest shit. Whether the chicken or the egg or came first, or whether it couldn’t be proven that we were all just brains in jars, or whatever. It was obvious he was just poking fun, but you’d take his bait every time. Getting worked up about nothing. Yeah, you always looked pissed, but I know you loved it.”

“Don’t presume to tell me what I ‘love,’” he snapped back, pathetic and childish.

“Oh, I’ll tell you: you loved arguing with Urahara. You walked right into his traps, every single time, because you’re never happier than when you have the chance to make someone else look like a dumbass. Especially if that someone is him. Honestly, for a long time, I didn’t know what he was thinking, provoking you like that. Took me a while to figure out that he’s probably the only guy who likes hearing the sound of your voice more than you do.”

“What are you implying?” Mayuri asked, finally, tearing down all attempts at masking the obvious, unsavory heart of the matter. “I don’t particularly like your tone, Zaraki.”

“I’m just saying that he did a lot for you, back in the day: and I ain’t just talking about him listening to all your self-absorbed bullshit. You don’t know how many times he had to get up and vouch for you in front of Yamamoto. All the other Captains thought inviting some prisoner from the Maggot’s Nest into our ranks was like letting a snake loose in the barn – but Urahara kept on saying, over and over, that you were just what we needed. Bailing you out was one thing, but he really let you walk all over him. He had a whole squad of Shinigami to take care of, but he spent all his time coddling you: some skinny, quiet kid that came to him with nothing but the shirt on his back. Urahara was always a pushover, but even he wouldn’t have done all of that for someone he didn’t care about.” 

“If he cared for me in the slightest, then he wouldn’t have dared to make me suffer the indignity of working under the authority of some… petulant child. Thinking back on it is enough to make me sick.” 

“You mean Sarugaki?” Zaraki asked, stuttering – as though he was surprised that Mayuri even remembered her. “Yeah, maybe he kept her as his lieutenant instead of promoting you, but it wasn’t like he was doing that to make you miserable. He trusted her. She’d been lieutenant of the Twelfth for ages. The fact that he didn’t promote you doesn’t mean he didn’t think you were special. You should have seen the way he looked at you, sometimes: like he found a little god locked up in that prison.” The more Zaraki spoke, droning on and on, the quieter the boar’s voice became, muted, drowned by the echo of the ringing in what was left of Mayuri’s ears. “He really thought you were something else. In all the years I knew him, Urahara was always smiling, but I think half the time, he was faking it. Putting on a show. But when he was spending time with you, watching you grow up from this quiet kid to a real Shinigami, I think he was really happy. Those were probably the best days of his life.”

There was a pressure behind his eyes, building, relentless, pounding at his forehead like a chisel. Mayuri pressed his fingers against his temple and tried to relieve the strain. He smeared his makeup, blurring the lines.

“You know,” Zaraki continued, his smile, cruel in its kindness, soft and cutting, “I always wondered whether there was something going on between you two.”

“The only thing going on between us was a bitter and unrepentant rivalry,” Mayuri snapped, spitting venom. “What in the world – other than your horrible penchant for leaping to irrational conclusions – would ever lead you to believe that it was anything more than that?”

“You didn’t always look as confident as you do now, you know that, Kurotsuchi?” he explained, strangely patient. “You always had an attitude, but back then, fresh out of prison, most of the time, you were actually kind of… depressing. Maybe you didn’t notice it, but you had serious trust issues. It was sad, seeing you looking over your shoulder all the time, like you were waiting for someone to jump you. I think all the times Urahara picked on you, and all the times he dragged you to meetings and those stupid holiday parties, he was just trying to make you feel like you were part of the normal world again. And it worked, you know that? You got a hell of a lot braver ever since he took you under his wing… for a coward and a cheat, anyway.”

Mayuri buried his hands in his lap, twisting them into the folds of his robe, to hide the way his fingers were trembling. 

“I… will admit that leaving the Maggot’s Nest was not an easy transition,” he replied, if only to avoid contradicting Zaraki’s undeniable memory of him, “but I would have managed it well enough on my own.”

“I’m sure you would’ve,” Zaraki agreed, much to his surprise. “You’ve got thick skin. It’s one of your selling points. But I think it’s still fair to say you got dealt a bad hand. And anyone would have a shit-ton of baggage from that. Whether you can carry it on your own or not, it’s easier to have someone else around to lighten the load. Right? Whether that someone else is Nemu or Urahara.” 

Or perhaps Zaraki himself, in a way. 

Mayuri didn’t want to respond to that. Not when every possible answer led to a pathetic, mewling dead end. And so, instead, he allowed Zaraki to continue, undeterred.

“You ever think about that?” the boar mumbled, almost hesitant, before pounding back his sake for a bit of liquid courage. “Being with Urahara?”

“I can’t imagine a poorer use of my time. I’ve never thought about it. Not once,” he clarified, erasing any potential for misunderstanding. “In fact, I would go so far as to say that I’ve never considered seeking companionship from anybody in my entire life.” 

“Really?” Zaraki practically sputtered, wiping the sake from his mouth. Mayuri couldn’t understand why the boar was so surprised when he looked like the type of man who was entirely too busy stroking his own Zanpakutō to spend any attention on another person.

“Have you?”

“Hasn’t everyone?” Zaraki quipped back, clearly perplexed. “I haven’t felt that way in a long time, but, hell, I was a teenager once. Back then, there was a woman I’d think about all the damn time. Never stood a chance, but it didn’t stop me from thinking about her at night. She was everything I wanted. Everything I wanted to be. You really never had anything like that? No one you ever wanted to be with? Not even when you were some pimply kid?”

“No.”

He could add that to the list of common milestones he’d never met. Just another unspoken secret of humanity, just like empathy and generosity, that he would never be able to translate.

“Hold up –” Zaraki interjected, then, slamming his scarred hand down onto the table. “Are you saying you’re a virgin?”

“…What of it?”

“Oh, Kurotsuchi…” Zaraki laughed, pointing at him – then shaking his head with a feigned, pitying smile. “You sad, little man. You know what your problem is? You never got laid. Maybe if you had, you’d quit walking around with that stick up your ass.” 

“On the contrary. I am a man of science living amongst troglodytes – and I have never once been drawn to bestiality.”

“Right. We’re all stupid animals, and you’re an underappreciated god. You keep telling yourself that,” he replied, clearly mocking him. “You know what? Forget your boredom – _this_ is a real sob story. Hell, I actually feel so bad for you, I’ll help you out. Let’s train together from now on. You can run drills with the rest of my squad. Put some meat on your bones and some hair on your chest. By the time I’m done with you, those twiggy little arms’ll be bigger than tree trunks.”

“Attempt it, and I will bury you beneath one.” 

In response to the threat, Zaraki only laughed, his smile, glowing with fondness. 

“Fine,” he relented, “instead of exercise, maybe we can start with pickup lines. Teach you some damn charm for once in your life. Not like I got any, myself, but I’m a fucking master compared to you. How ‘bout it, Kurotsuchi? Let’s do a little roleplay. …I’ll even let you call me ‘Kisuke.’”

For what it was worth, even while slow, drunk, and laughing, Zaraki dodged that flying ochoko cup with expert precision. As it shattered against the wall, shards, shimmering, Mayuri knew, instantly, that he’d made a fatal mistake. 

He’d already tasted the poison. 

Even if he looked back up, his view of the cosmos's swirling stars would never again be quite the same.


	4. Chapter 4

Kurosaki’s sweaty arm brushed against his haori, as he took a seat beside him on the park bench. 

Disgusting. 

It took every last fiber of Mayuri’s restraint to stop himself from shoving the man away in petulant protest. Though the sweltering heat of the human world’s sun beat down upon them both with relentless abandon, Mayuri sat completely still, refusing to peel off even a single layer of his kimono. His Gigai was roasting alive beneath all that silk, but he always had been determined to suffer in the name of fashion. He was, after all, precisely the type of man who would endure unimaginable torment for something that he loved. 

A bit of heat was nothing.

“Hey, Kurotsuchi –” the human called, his voice, dull. Droning monotone. Mayuri lost interest in any further conversation the moment Kurosaki finished his initial greeting. Tuning him out, he fixated, instead, on the way the human had called his name.

His tongue had lingered, languishing, on every passing syllable, as though it had struggled to so much as pronounce the characters. _Kurotsuchi_. It was too foreign a sound, perhaps, too rarely recited, to be stated with any modicum of fluency. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. Nobody ever called Mayuri’s name, nobody addressed him, unless the matter was urgent. His presence was not one that was desired so much as it was tolerated, barely, if only to ensure that his brilliance worked for instead of against the united agenda of Gotei 13. If the agents of Sereitei could only find a man half as clever, Mayuri didn’t have a doubt in his mind that the very colleagues that he’d known for centuries would be precisely the ones to throw him back into the Maggot’s Nest after a long and tireless struggle. With only Akon, Zaraki, and Kisuke, perhaps, to vouch for his character, he would be damned. A lost cause, never to be seen again.

It was a dangerous train of thought – one that tensed his tendons, goosebumps, rising on his arms. He could still recall the crushing sense of hopelessness, sitting in that cell, bound by rusted fetters. Wondering if obscurity and degradation were truly all that the fates had written in his stars.

Wasn’t he meant for greater things? 

Why grant him insight and enlightenment if it was not his destiny to use them? 

Irrational as it was, he’d felt betrayed, even when there had been nobody and nothing to blame for his predicament. Nothing but chance and circumstance, anyway. But there was nothing rational about human emotion, and even he, as far removed as he was, was not completely immune to them. 

A dangerous train of thought, indeed. One that would lead to disgrace and ruin. 

Realizing that, Mayuri snapped himself back to the present, willfully focusing his attention on Kurosaki’s moving mouth and the drivel spewing out of it. That man never failed to disgust him. The way he looked at him with a furrowed brow, his gaze, narrowed, as though he were chancing a glance at a gorgon instead of sitting in the presence of the most fashion-forward Shinigami in all of Sereitei. 

“...I know you were the one who invited me to come out here,” Kurosaki continued, blathering on mindlessly, “but, honestly, I didn’t actually think you’d actually show up. I actually bet Rukia you’d bail.”

“Oh, I was tempted to do just that,” Mayuri admitted, releasing a deep, weary breath. “The closer I came to this park, the more my mind raced with thoughts of all that I could have accomplished, if only I had been wise enough to remain in my laboratory for the afternoon. I thought of all the test subjects I could have captured. All of the samples I could have processed. Coming here was a poor decision... but what can I say? Even the best of us make mistakes.”

Kurosaki scoffed at that, though Mayuri wasn’t certain whether it was an expression of distaste or simply amusement. Years after Nemu’s death, he still didn’t have the empathy to interpret the subtleties of facial expressions. He was learning, slowly, from his outings with Kenpachi, but it was a skill that he knew would never come to him naturally.

“Regretting it already?” Kurosaki asked. “It’s a little early to want to go running back to your lab. We just got here.”

Leaning back, Mayuri shifted his gaze from Kurosaki’s strained, shriveled scowl to the children’s playground mere paces away. That short distance, however, felt entirely as though it were worlds away, farther than even the intrinsic gap that kept the realm of the spirits from the world of men. Lost in another plane, Mayuri watched in silence, as laughing, joyful human children, incomprehensible to him, played together in a sandbox, building crumbling figures of castles and houses, which were truly nothing more than lopsided mounds. One structure, however, stood apart from the others: a towering ziggurat. A pyramid, perfectly balanced. For a child, it was nothing short of a marvel of engineering.

As she placed the final brick atop her tower, Nemuri turned to him and smiled. 

Though he hid it well, even without his makeup to aid him, Mayuri could not deny that a strange little modicum of sentiment – sickening, warming, and utterly baffling – trickled down his veins like a single, fragile blossom, pushing up through the ground of the cracked and arid wasteland. In truth, if he had no choice but to be honest with himself, that feeling, in all of its foreignness... frightened him. He wanted to avert his gaze and turn away. To return to the safe and familiar. It was only human nature, he considered. As a researcher, however, as the greatest of them all, it fell to Mayuri to devote himself to the discovery and defense of the new, no matter how frightening, how earth-shattering, the truths. 

Nemuri waved to him. He looked back at her, expressionless. 

“I’ve never enjoyed being outdoors,” he confessed, as Kurosaki blinked back at him, his mind, empty, as was common amongst simple men. Elevator music, radio static, played on a loop behind blank eyes. “The sun, the sounds, the... _people_. They’re all so very crude, wouldn’t you say? Being here, amongst the general public, the lowest common denominator of humanity, is not unlike wading through the primordial ooze. Walking waist deep in the mud and the mire. In comparison, my laboratory is a safe haven. An oasis in the desert. Can you blame me for longing to return?” 

“If you hate being out in public so much, why even ask me to meet you here in the first place? If you wanted to talk, we could’ve met in your lab.”

Mayuri sighed, running blue, painted fingernails through his meticulously styled hair.

“I asked you here at Nemuri’s request. I have better uses for my time than entertaining the whims of children, of course, but – and perhaps this is foolishness – I thought to humor her, just this once. I am a generous god, after all,” _so long as he got those thirteen sacrifices on his mountain_, “and, selfishly, I cannot help but wonder, as of late, whether it wouldn’t be… interesting, from a research perspective, to observe my Nemuri in a new environment. To expose her to something strange and undiscovered.”

“And what’s that supposed to be?” Kurosaki laughed. “Letting her have fun, for once? Or letting her make friends? That’s not exactly a ‘strange, new environment.’ That’s just being a kid. It’s normal.”

“Perhaps through your perspective, it is. What you fail to consider, however, is the fact that Nemuri is a reflection of my soul. Within her lies a fragment of my spirit. In raising her predecessor in a similar environment to which I, myself, was raised, predictably, my Nemu developed into a type of person remarkably similar to me, in my youth. Through allowing Nemuri to broaden her horizons, however, I would now like to determine whether her outcome could be… different.”

“You mean whether _you_ could have been different.”

“Don’t go putting words in my mouth –” _you presumptuous troglodyte._

The audacity. 

Only through great, superhuman restraint was Mayuri able to hold his tongue. He couldn’t risk an outburst, after all. Though he had somehow wormed Nemuri into the friendship circle created by those little toads in the Kurosaki and Arabai families, he wasn’t on good terms with their parents, even after all that time. 

There was always something about the Quincy, or about his past treatment of their group, or his general, opportunistic attitude that they held over his head. Demanding apologies and explanations that he would never be obligated to give. Ridiculous. 

Even so, Mayuri knew full well that any favors paid to him were done for Nemuri’s sake – not his. 

Before Kurosaki could say anything further, however, speaking of little toads, his filthy child came running up to him with Nemuri in tow. 

“Papa, do you hear that music?” the boy squawked, gasping, panting, and out of breath. Like an animal. “It’s the ice cream man! Can me and Nemu-chan have some money for ice cream?”

Kurosaki chuckled, light and airy, as he dug around in his pockets. 

“Sure. Get something for me while you’re at it!”

Stars danced behind his eyes as coins rained down into the boy’s cupped hands. When the little toad counted out some change for Nemuri, however, Mayuri’s arm shot out, gripping tight around his daughter’s wrist. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” he hissed, “Did I say that you could make unprompted deviations to your diet, independent of my wishes? You won’t be consuming any of that sugar-laden swill. Now, give back those coins. And wash your hands afterwards – they’re filthy.”

Typical Kurosaki, that vacuous dullard, glared at him with his lips pulled into a scowl and his eyebrows furrowed, incensed over nothing. Overreacting. Just as always.

“What’s wrong with a little bit of sugar?” he asked, mouth agape like a hooked carp. “She’s just a kid.” 

“The adolescent years represent the period of life in which a person undergoes the greatest growth. A child’s diet can easily be used to extrapolate their risk of developing various health conditions and unsavory dietary habits in the far future. One must always plan ahead, Kurosaki – though I’m sure that’s an alien concept for you.”

“Come on,” Kurosaki argued, growing louder and louder by the second. “One ice cream bar isn’t gonna kill her. You said you wanted her to be a normal kid for once, right? So loosen up a little.”

Perhaps to Kurosaki’s surprise, it was _Nemuri_ who silenced his protests.

“It’s okay, Kurosaki-san. I should listen to Mayuri-sama. He always knows what’s best for me.”

She spoke those words in the same obedient, reverent tone that Nemu had used when addressing him, years before, but there was something different about the way that she looked at him, timidly shifting her glance from the money in her palm to Mayuri’s fingers, clamped down upon her wrist, hard enough to bruise. She looked into his eyes only once, and in that mere, split second of contact, he saw it: neither fear nor reverence but… _sadness_.

A strange, long-forgotten memory welled up within him. His father’s knuckles, striking his jaw. Calloused workman’s fingers, digging into downy, blue hair, ripping out the roots as they pulled him from the bathroom and out into the back gardens for the very last time.

He’d been caught painting his face again – and makeup was somehow sinister than the gang tattoos and stab wounds that had put his brother in the ground, years before. His father would have rather buried two sons than live alongside one who didn’t fit his notion of masculinity. He'd always detested that man with a furious intensity – but the person that Mayuri had hated most of all, as he had lain, bleeding and broken in the stone garden, was himself, for the fact that he had been so spineless as to tolerate that brand of chronic mistreatment until the very day he died, without having realized his dreams and ambitions. Without living up to his potential. Without _meaning anything_.

It broke his heart.

Mayuri could not remember the details of his father’s face: the color of his eyes or the shape of his nose. He couldn’t recall the timbre of his voice. The rhythm of his footsteps. But he had never forgotten the way that man had made him feel, robbing him of his future. The impotent rage, the regret and the sorrow, boiling up and fading away as darkness clouded over his vision. 

That was all that remained of his father, now: he was not his own man quite as much as he was a collection of some of the worst memories of his life.

Looking down at Nemuri’s bruised wrist, clutched in his hand, Mayuri wondered if he, too, was destined to be nothing more than that. He swallowed hard around the lump in his throat, his breath, quivering. Slowly, each movement, uncertain, he released his grip, prying away his fingers one at a time. 

“Mayuri-sama?”

Nemuri tilted her head, curious, as she looked up at him through a veil of long, dark bangs. 

She was so much smaller than him. So helpless, yet with so much budding potential. Perhaps it would have been unjust for him to stifle it for having the gall to lead her down a path that he hadn’t intended. Defiance was in his blood, after all – as it was in hers.

“Go,” he ordered, leaning back on the bench, “before I return to my senses and change my mind.”

A subtle smile blossomed on her face. At that moment, she looked not like a doll, like an artificial being, carved in his image, but like nothing short of the genuine article. A human being in the flesh. His legacy and magnum opus. 

“Okay,” she answered, her smile, beaming. “I’ll look at what they have. Maybe I can get a big ice cream bar with two sticks, so we can split it.”

“Don’t be so presumptuous,” he hissed. “When did I ever order you to do something as ridiculous as that?” 

Strangely enough, ignoring his tone, Nemuri blinked back at him, unfazed. 

“My apologies. I thought that you would have appreciated the offer. It’s so hot! Don’t you want some ice cream? I know desserts are too sweet for us, most of the time, but I think they have a couple traditional flavors that we like. …Or that I like, anyway. But you like azuki, too, right, Mayuri-sama?”

Of course, he did. She was a branch on his metaphorical tree; they shared all of the same preferences. Even so, Mayuri’s very first instinct was to snap at her for daring to be so trite as to tell him what he “liked” when he was _clearly_ an enigma residing on a higher plane of existence than mere common man. When he looked at her, however, when he saw her smiling up at him with all the admiration in the world, for just a passing moment, he could see his old Nemu, reflected in her expression. 

All of her unrealized dreams and desires: to be a daughter instead of a student. To have a father instead of a master. 

And so, in his own way, he relented.

“You hardly know my preferences. I am a man of very discerning tastes,” he dismissed, waving his hand, as though brushing aside a simple mosquito instead of his own daughter. “If I leave the selection to you, you’ll only make a mess of things, just as you always do.”

“Maybe,” she replied. Downcast, she kicked at the grass and stones beneath her feet, smudging her little Mary Janes. Before she could continue stammering, however, Mayuri went on –

“And that is precisely why it would be more logical for us to browse the merchant’s selection… together.” Holding his breath, Mayuri held out his hand for her. “If I’ll be getting something for myself, as well, however, I can’t very well rely on Kurosaki’s money.” 

She puffed up her cheeks in protest, though in the end, obediently, Nemuri returned the coins to their rightful owner before slipping her little hand into her father’s. 

“But we could have gotten it for free.”

“Never prioritize avarice over pride. Remember that.”

As Kurosaki stood and led the way, that man gave him a smirk and an irritating, snide, little side-eye that Mayuri didn’t miss. If they weren’t in the human world, he would have thrown a fit after suffering such disrespect. In truth, he was still tempted, burningly so, until Nemuri gave his palm a gentle squeeze, beckoning him to get up and follow. 

Though Mayuri obediently trailed after Kurosaki and his son, Nemuri could, perhaps, sense his reluctance.

“Are you feeling okay? Do you want to to sit and rest for a little while longer? You must be tired from walking around in your Gigai all day.”

“Stop fussing over me,” he scolded. He wasn’t that old yet – even if his knees were starting to creak when he stood. “I’m not an invalid.” 

“Okay, Mayuri-sama.”

“Nemuri –” he prompted, suddenly, averting eye contact. “We should be cautious about how we address each other in the human world. We don’t want to cause any misunderstandings or unnecessary trouble with the authorities of this realm when we will not be able to easily defend ourselves. We should attempt to blend in with the local population. We should observe their customs. Do you understand?”

He’d expected her to respond with confusion, or at least to ask him for clarification about what he meant, but instead, playing along with expert fluidity, his Nemuri looked up at him and smiled, her cheeks, dimpling. With a boldness more attributed to her creator than her predecessor, Nemuri pressed her cheek against his arm and wove their fingers together.

“Okay, Daddy! I can do that.” 

It was what he’d requested, even in a roundabout way, and yet Mayuri hadn’t been expecting the shock. It stunned him just like rocuronium, shooting down his tendons, flooding through his blood. It robbed the breath from his lungs.

He stood still, freezing in place, letting his arm go slack as Nemuri tugged at him, urging him forwards. 

“Come on!” she prompted. “If we don’t hurry, the truck will leave, and you and I won’t get anything!”

“Stop shouting… Why are you always so loud?” Mayuri grumbled, as he allowed his daughter to lead him like a dog. 

Nemuri tilted her head, confused.

“Because you are!” she answered, as though it should have been obvious. “When you get loud, everyone listens, even Akon. And I want him to listen to me the same way he listens to you. He respects you. Everyone does. I want to be able to talk like that, too.”

“Don’t make a habit of it. You can do better than that,” he scolded, hissing. “A propensity for shouting has… always been one of my least appealing traits, whether it’s served me well or not.”

“I don’t think it’s that bad,” she replied, shaking her head. “You always have something interesting to say. It’s only right that everybody should have to hear it. Good ideas deserve to be heard. Don’t you think so? There’s nothing wrong with being loud when you’re right all the time. I think you’re perfect just the way you are.” 

Drawn in by growing curiosity, he glanced down at her, watching her cling to his arm like a lifeline. Her little smile glowed with a child’s innocence, pure admiration, yet untainted by the inevitable realization that her father, her teacher and guardian, was far from divine. That he was flawed, just like anyone else. 

If Mayuri knew one universal truth, it was that there was no concept of perfection in the world – except, perhaps, for his own, highly biased opinion of his daughter. 

Even while knowing that, however, he thought it wise to allow her to believe in the illusion of his godhood. Everybody needed an ideal to pursue, even if it was something as foolish as a daughter’s dream to be just like her father. It was a goal that she would never fulfill, of course; Nemuri would never be like him, when she shined so brightly. She eclipsed him. She was too great, too brilliant, to be limited to an existence as simple as his own. 

Accomplished as he was, Mayuri only set the standard. It was up to Nemuri to leave him in the stardust.


End file.
